It had been a long time.
Sensing the lateness of the morning even with the blackened-out windows, she glanced at the clock. It was nearly six thirty and she was on duty in an hour. She slipped out of bed and headed for the attached bathroom, which continued the minimalist style that Alexander seemed to favor. Gleaming white with chrome accents. For a second, she contemplated showering at the hospital, but her curiosity and her ache to remain close to him had her stripping off her clothes and stepping into the white limestone stall. She glanced around for the showerhead, but saw none. She twisted the faucet handles, hoping for an answer, and in less than an instant, hot water rained down on her from above. Startled, she looked up. The water was falling from a hundred tiny holes in the ceiling tiles. It was magnificent. As she washed her hair, she imagined Alexander beside her, engulfing her small frame with his massive one as the water sluiced over their skin. The intensity of desire that ran through her in that moment concerned her. Granted, fantasizing was a normal, natural part of being human, and for Sara not uncharted waters every other month or so, but the continuous, unbalanced need she had for this man, this nonhuman male, seemed excessive, and, frankly, out of the realm of what she considered normal. Maybe she was under some kind of spell. Vampire voodoo.
Grinning at her idiocy, she quickly finished up and left the bathroom. With a towel wrapped around her, she padded into the large walk-in closet attached to his bathroom, looking for a robe or something that would hold her until she could slip on yesterday’s clothes again. But what she saw there made her pause, made her nearly drop her towel. Her clothes, every piece, every pair of shoes, was either hung up or folded on one side of the closest. He’d brought all her things here, put them beside his own. That intimacy, the sweet, uneasy promise of that gesture, sent a shiver of fascinated apprehension through her. How long did he expect her to stay? How long did he want her to stay?
In his room, his bed . . .
The clock on the wall screamed at her to hurry and she piled her hair on top of her head in a loose knot, covered the bruise on her face with a little bit of makeup, then slipped into a black pencil skirt, white sweater, and a pair of heels before grabbing her purse and heading for the door.
Outside in the hallway a young man was furiously working, installing several sets of rather unusual metallic window coverings to the windows. He didn’t look up from his task and acknowledge her so Sara moved on, rounding the corner, hoping to find a staircase nearby. But in her rush, she ran straight into someone. “Oh!” She backed up quickly and apologized. “I’m so sorry. I—”
“It’s all right. No permanent damage done.”
Sara caught her breath enough to see the black-haired woman she’d nearly knocked down. She was a total stranger, but one of the most beautiful women Sara had ever seen. She looked to be somewhere in her early twenties and was a good five inches shorter than Sara, but her face and figure made up for her height. She had very pale skin, eyes the color of sunlit grass, pretty white scarves wrapped around her neck and both wrists, and a simple black dress that accentuated hips and breasts that would’ve made Marilyn Monroe jealous.
She smiled at Sara and stuck out her lovely, pale hand. “Bronwyn Kettler.”
“Hi.” Sara shook the woman’s hand and returned her smile. “Sara Donohue.”
“You’re human?”
The question and its casual delivery made her laugh. “Yes. Which must mean you’re not.”
“There are days I wish I was. How’s that?” The woman’s smile deepened, exposing a lovely set of dimples and the tips of two ultrawhite fangs. “Are you going downstairs? I’ll walk with you.”
“All right,” Sara said as they headed for the stairs. “So, do you . . . work here?”
“No. I’m here for a handfast with the eldest Roman.”
“Handfast?” Sara repeated. The list of vampire vocabulary was growing at a steady pace. Starting a list might be a good idea, she thought.
“It’s a vampire thing,” Bronwyn said, shrugging her shoulders, which caused her very real, very perfect breasts to bounce. Sara had never been jealous of another woman’s top half, but she really wouldn’t mind possessing a rack like that.
“The handfast goes back many, many years,” Bronwyn continued as they walked down the stairs. “You’d probably call it dating. Exclusive dating.”
The captivated haze Sara had been in for the past two minutes abruptly wilted, and she rewound their conversation in her mind until she got to a point of confusion. She stopped on the last step and cocked her head to one side and said, “Wait a second. The eldest Roman?”
Bronwyn nodded. “Alexander.”
Sara’s smile, along with every intimate feeling she’d had in the past half hour, faded. “You’re dating Alexander? For how long—”
“No, no,” Bronwyn corrected quickly. “We’ve never met. We hadn’t a need to. Until now. You see, in our breed, we have true mates—our destined one—and when a paven goes through morpho—”
Sara didn’t wait for her finish. “You think Alexander is your true mate.”
The woman lifted her chin confidently. “I do.”
Electric currents of blind jealousy ran through Sara’s body, attacking every muscle, every soft spot of emotion, and her eyes narrowed on the woman she’d only moments ago thought sweet and charming. She’d liked guys before, even felt possessive a time or two. But this, what she was feeling now was altogether different. This had rage behind it, a true fighting spirit, and she wasn’t exactly sure what do with the feeling.
Bronwyn’s concerned gaze moved over Sara’s face. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. Come on now. Get your shit together, Donohue. Sara’s gaze caught on the tips of Bronwyn’s fangs and she inhaled deeply. She needed to get out of here, get back to reality for a while—her reality. Forcing a thin-lipped smile, Sara nodded at the woman. “Excuse me. I’m running late.”
The woman smiled. “Okay. It was nice to meet you, Sara.”
Right. Very nice. Normally, blurting out sarcasm in her head did wonders for her morale. Not so much today. Seemed she had competition.
Sara left the beautiful vampire on the stairs, walked across the foyer and out the front door into the sunlight.
Three hours later, she was embroiled in the dealings of the hospitaclass="underline" new patients, med schedules, group therapy checks, evals . . . Quite honestly, it was a welcome chaos. Here she knew the language, the rules—she ran the show.
“Gray? Are you listening to me?”
Well, not every part of the show apparently.
“Gray?”
Ignoring her and refusing to cooperate, Gray lay flat on his back inside of Walter Wynn’s new high-resolution MRI scanner, while Sara sat on the other side of the glass, doing the job of an MRI tech. Moving in on the territory of other staff members wasn’t standard practice in her hospital, but when it came to patients with PTSD and/or memory trauma, most of the staff understood her penchant for taking over jobs that weren’t normally hers. Sara had to be on hand to witness every movement, every change, and today was no different. It was the first in a series of scans she was performing on three of her patients over the next seven days. As she recounted their traumatic memories, she was going to record the changes in the amygdala—the area of the brain that processed emotional and fearful experiences.
“I need you to hold your breath for a moment,” she said again, this time with undisguised frustration. “Come on, Gray, please.”